Leaving aside the tired argument that the Mi’kmaq defending their land could only have been “egged on” by the French and were somehow unable to think for themselves, I’ll crush Boileau’s argument that “today’s norms ... would be incomprehensible to 18th century Europeans.”

First, it’s curious that Boileau ignores my 2013 biography of Edward Cornwallis (Cornwallis: The Violent Birth of Halifax). I know he knows about it, as he attended a talk I gave to professors and academics at the Dalhousie University Club. Before my talk, Boileau delivered a sizzling four-minute putdown of my work on Cornwallis. I suspect he ignored my biography in his opinion piece as he knows it blows away his dusty argument.

When Cornwallis joined the 1746 British mission to destroy Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Highland uprising, the British leadership debated the ethics of the proposed pacification of Scotland.

John Campbell, the Earl of Loudon and a peer of Cornwallis, argued against the tactics of indiscriminate rape and murder. He said the distinction between a Jacobite rebel and a loyal-to-the-Crown Highlander was “too fine for me to observe” and that the pacification would destroy as many loyal subjects as it did rebels.

After Cornwallis founded Halifax, he issued the scalping proclamation in 1749. His bosses at London’s Board of Trade wrote to him in February 1750 to remind him that his mission was primarily about making money, not killing enemies. The board supported the morality of his actions, but suggested he try the “gentler methods and offers of peace.”

Cornwallis ignored this advice for two years before dropping the attempted genocide in favour of trade.

Finally, Cornwallis was involved in two courts martial in the 1750s after two military misadventures. The second court martial resulted in the execution of Admiral John Byng, the leader of the failed rescue of Minorca. Cornwallis was in London when his regiment on Minorca was surrounded by the French. He was sent with Byng to relieve them.

But Cornwallis voted with Byng to abandon the mission and left his regiment behind French lines.

The French writer Voltaire watched in amazed amusement. In his 1759 satirical novel Candide, he says the British killed Byng “because he did not kill a sufficient number of men himself” and, famously, because the British thought it wise “to kill one admiral to encourage the others.”

Voltaire — an 18th century European, let’s remember — further mocked the armies fighting across Europe as “a million regimented assassins, from one extremity of Europe to the other, (who) get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder.”

So Edward Cornwallis was certainly familiar with contemporary moral (and economic) arguments against tactics like the scalping proclamation. If John Boileau wants to join Cornwallis in defending the scalping proclamation, let him put forward a factual argument. He can’t just rewrite history to suit his personal feelings.

Jon Tattrie is the author of Cornwallis: The Violent Birth of Halifax.